by Prof. Dra. Raquel Silvano de Almeida

antes de existir computador existia tevê

antes de existir tevê existia luz elétrica

antes de existir luz elétrica existia bicicleta

antes de existir bicicleta existia enciclopédia

antes de existir enciclopédia existia alfabeto

antes de existir alfabeto existia a voz

antes de existir a voz existia o silêncio [...]

homem pedra planta bicho flor

luz elétrica tevê computador

batedeira, liquidificador

vamos ouvir esse silêncio meu amor

                                         amplificado no amplificador

do estetoscópio do doutor

no lado esquerdo do peito, esse tambor

In rhymes and verses, Brazilian singer and songwriter Arnaldo Antunes takes us back, in a brief timeline glance, by reporting from the prehistoric life to the contemporary technological advancements.

Food for thought: how has technology played its part in Education?
 

“The increasing integration between the classroom and virtual environment is essential to open the school to the world and bring the world into the school.” Professor José Moran’s assumption in 2015 leads us to reflect upon the outmost emergency for the appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies - ICT by schooling and higher education professionals in the current setting.

We must recognize that our children and our students were born in this technological society - they are the so-called “digital natives”. From day to night, they become familiar with all the communication and digital information resources, such as: chat, email, twitter, facebook, instagram, whatsapp, among other endless social communication networks available on the internet. Therefore, it is needless to say that ICT has already provided all of us, even outside the schooling setting, hybrid ways of socially living, teaching, learning and building knowledge.

Hybrid teaching consists of the union of personal and face-to-face learning styles and processes with technological tools which are pedagogically effective. Moran addresses to the fact that “teaching is also hybrid, because it is not reduced to what we intentionally plan institutionally. We learn through organized processes, along with open and informal processes. We learn when we have a teacher and we learn by ourselves, from mates, and from strangers. We learn intentionally and we learn spontaneously ”.

In this mean, I see that although society has evolved into hybrid forms of knowledge building with the advancements of technology, schools and colleges keep on teaching in isolated-individual frameworks, with no ICT tools neither hybrid learning designs.

A few years ago, I co-supervised a university-school partnership study carried out by two female high school students in a public school in Londrina, which sought to investigate and understand the perceptions of teachers and students regarding the use of ICT for school teaching and learning. The results revealed that school does not effectively incorporate technologies as a means for teaching and learning, although their pedagogical use is within the school’s pedagogical project.

All in all, it is an urge request for our Brazilian educational system to provide new and different forms of learning among students, which effectively integrate virtual technologies, since traditional pedagogical practices may be meaningless for our students now.

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References:

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ALMEIDA, R. S.; BUENO, T. O.; GIMENEZ, T. N.; MORAIS, A. Z. O uso das tecnologias de informação e comunicação para a aprendizagem colaborativa: percepções de alunos e professores do ensino médio de uma escola pública de Londrina. In: CALVO, L. C. S.; EL KADRI, M. S.; ORTENZI, D. I. B. G.;  SILVA, K. A. (orgs.) Reflexões sobre ensino de línguas e formação de professores no Brasil: uma homenagem à professora Telma Gimenez. Campinas, SP: Pontes Editores, 2013.

ANTUNES, A. O Silêncio. Música. Discografia. 1996. 

Disponível em: https://arnaldoantunes.com.br/new/sec_discografia_sel.php?id=57. Acesso em: Março de 2020.

MORAN, J. Educação híbrida: um conceito-chave para a educação, hoje. In: BACICH, L., NETO, A. T.; TREVISANI, F.M. (orgs.)  Ensino híbrido: personalização e tecnologia na educação. Porto Alegre: Penso, 2015.